“Don’t Be That Guy” Repost.

Top Performances: Chris J. 14:09, Whitney 23:23 (18" Box, 83lb, Blue Band. Scaled yes, but this is a 10 minute PR from about a year ago when she used a 12" Box, 73lb, and a Green Band!)

It has been brought to my attention that maybe everyone Isn't clicking the links I post at the bottom of our site every day. This is a repost from Justin at CrossFit East Sac, but it is a very important read.

"I've been sitting here in front of the laptop at my moms house now for 30 minutes watching the cursor blink. I must have gotten 5 sentences into an opening paragraph 3 times by now and trashed every single one. I know what I want to say; I made an outline for god’s sake. In another lifetime when I was polite, charming and intelligent, I was actually a pretty good writer. Now my brain is soft and doughy, the kind of brain that other fit, sudoku-jumble-crossword playing brains make fun of. So here I sit writer's blocked, rambling about everything but what I came to talk about. Could be performance anxiety I guess, our blog has become something of a hot-spot due to Justin’s wit and sharp tongue, so eight-hundred-some odd posts later I have yet to contribute, until now. I told him there was something on my mind, thinking that it would chap his ass all to pieces and he would just tear everyone a proverbial new one… and i could stand on the sidelines and say "YEAH, what he said!" when he said “that’s a good idea, you write it and I’ll email you the info how to make a post.” My stomach sank… “Shit.” Out of my wheelhouse I go… bear with me.

Here comes the “complement sandwich” part of this bastardized essay. A lot of really terrific things are happening around our little box. I see a massive, ever-growing group of really great, motivated folks conquering fears, overcoming weakness and illness, becoming strong, fast and very generally physically prepared. I see folks who never competed on any stage a day in their lives grabbing their nuts and throwing themselves into full bore athletic competitions. I see members becoming certified and turning into coaches, helping their fellow athletes with advice about nutrition, strength, conditioning. People show up on weekends for gymnastics and endurance groups rain or shine. Even more important, I see folks making friendships that will last a lifetime, because they are rooted with common beliefs and the desire to become and remain strong, fit and healthy. Oh, and also a desire to occasionally party and drink their asses off and potentially do something completely embarrassing. I see people changing their lives in this building every day, all good things.

Well, that was the bread, here comes the meat. The downfall to all these good things is, folks tend to become experts overnight. People start feeling their oats, and cant seem to see the forest through the trees. Get someone involved in a competition and all of a sudden they become “Mr. Rx’D.” He’s the guy who no matter what wants to do exactly what is written on the whiteboard, regardless of time lost or serious personal injury. Different WOD’s produce different stimuli, and just because you have the physical ability to accomplish a task does not mean that it is appropriate for you. The workouts that I program are “best case” scenarios for the best athletes. They are designed as tasks for athletes like Jason Kahlipa, Mikko Salo, Gram Holmberg, and the like on their best day. Our program is all about effect on the nervous system as a means to more muscle mass, cardiovascular output and thus capacity for work or “fitness”. The goal is to put ourselves in that best case scenario on a day to day basis.

Example: if Jason Kahlipa can do “Fran”(21-15-9 thrusters @ 95lbs and pull-ups, a workout that produces nearly 1/3 horse power with the right athlete.) in 2 minutes flat, and he can also thruster 275lbs, should I do the same exact workout if I can only thruster 155lbs? Will this produce the same effect on my nervous system and ultimately make me more fit if it takes me 10:00 to do the same amount of work Jason accomplished 8 minutes faster? No! 95 lbs is roughly 1/3 of Jason's max where it is nearly 2/3 of mine, this small percentage of his max will allow him to move the bar with great speed and efficiency. At roughly double that percentage I on the other hand would undoubtedly have to let go of the bar more often, especially as I fatigue. The effect of a 2-minute Fran is massive on your endocrine system. The effect of a 10 minute Fran is also huge, but in a different way. The 2-minute fran will produce an output response; leaving you hypoxic and unresponsive on the floor. The 10-minute Fran will be more of a strength response, heart rate much lower and muscles failing due to lack of strength, not lack of conditioning. In a workout where we are looking for sheer power output, the point is missed with the 10-minute variety. If I can only thruster 155, I’m better off using 45-75 lbs for this particular WOD; making the load comparable to Jason's. Although this may insult my man ego, it may also allow me to better resemble resemble a piston during my thrusters instead of the space shuttle struggling to take off. The more manageable load may allow me to finish my scaled Fran in the 2-4 minute range, and while not matching total output, i may receive the same effect psychologically, whats known as the fran affect: pulmonary edema, metallic taste in your mouth, nausea, dizziness and general awesomeness.

"Wait, I thought we were supposed to lift heavy shit boss?! Get your story straight! I thought we were supposed to do what the board says?! I competed in the "whatever-the-fuck competition" last week, i'll be lame if I don't do it Rx!" Does that mean we should never throw ourselves under the bus to see exactly what we have inside our guts? Absolutely not. When it says go heavy, GO FUCKIN HEAVY! When you want to see what you are made of, go for it, you should absolutely test the waters from time to time, push your envelope and do things that scare the piss out of you. Its good for you to get crushed by a benchmark workout now and again. Its good to try to do the Rx variety just to see exactly what you’ve got, but this is not where you want to spend the majority of your training just because you can. You aren't going to become a beast by trudging through a WOD that takes a stronger person half as much time to do, but you will become a monster if you scale your weight and match the time domain. We must scale appropriately so that we can produce the same times and thus the same neuro-endocrine response that the big name athletes are putting up and getting respectively. There are times I have scaled down my own workouts, I don't feel shamed into Rx just because I created the damn thing. If I'm beat all to shit from a long week or the spirit just isn't in me that day i'm not against backing down the weights so I can ramp up the intensity. This is how one becomes a monster, checking your ego and your expert mind at the door, surrendering to your coaches and producing the desired results.

One final thought. Listen. Listen to what your coaches say, when they do say something. Many of you are 1, 2 some close to 3 years into this program and require less and less coaching, because experience does give you a broad skill-set, but that being said no one in this gym is at a level where coaching is irrelevant. Many of you need to slow down a bit and learn to recieve coaching during your WOD's The 10 seconds its going to take your coach to explain something or correct a technique flaw will save you 10 minutes in the long run by helping your body do what its supposed to. When we see errors that can cause bodily harm or even inefficiency we aren't doing you any favors by letting you flail away at a spastic pace and ruin your knees so you can get a fast time. Those same errors that will injure you also cause you to be slower, when the body moves correctly it moves quickly as well. On the same token, if your coach says your missing depth on squats or missed chin over bar on a pull-up, take it to heart and if you give a shit, fix it. You play how you practice, going super fast in training means nothing if you miss 10 reps and have arbitrary movement standards. This is one reason Justin and I have always done well in CrossFit competitions, attention to detail. Many people out there who look real good on paper don't fare so well in competition because their technique is dog-shit, and none of it counts, its not measurable. No rep.. No rep… No rep… there's nothing worse that working your ass off and getting no credit for it. Don't be that guy.

That's it. I'm proud of every one of you. If the world ended tomorrow I think that our little cult would be just fine. There is no other group of people that I would rather spend the majority of my life with, but let's not get too big for our britches."

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Responses (4)

That was a good article (and a good reminder for me)! I did read it yesterday, for the record.

Ryan D

March 10, 2011 at 8:42 pm ·

I battle with not being that guy. Especially when my body is beat up, but when 3-2-1 go is given the logical thought region of my brain turns off. From there I turn into a dumb animal.

Chris Janeway

March 11, 2011 at 10:51 am ·

I have the same issues. I get way too competitive going into these workouts and want to go heavy. I probably need to reel it back in sometimes. This workout was a killer though! I was definitely tasting the metal and got super dizzy…crushed.